Evaluation - Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?

The media institution that would most likely distribute our product would be Warner Brothers. This is because it was Warner Brothers where film noir's where first made after it was founded in 1923. In the 1920's there were 5 major studios that where producing films. For example, the five large companies where, 20th Century Fox, RKO Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. There was also the case of the studio system where a famous film star out of a film, maybe if they play the leading role, would be there to promote the film to guarantee an audience are going to watch it. 

In the 1920's all of the different film studio companies used to have to try and save as much money as possible. They did this by using the majority of close-ups and mid-shots instead of wide and establishing shots. This is so that the audience couldn't see the rest of the set so they could leave it basic and not have much at all in the set whereas nowadays, the set is one of the main aspects of a film. The companies used to make cheap but good films that they would have an audience to watch them. By doing this, they made money and quite a lot of profit to make the next film bigger and better than the last. Another money saving solution they would use is dry ice to create a steam affect to add to the eerie mysterious feature of the films, mainly film noir's. Furthermore, most of the scenes where set  at night in alley ways and offices so the production company didn't have to worry about the scene's setting much and they could just concentrate on the film's plot and the character's more.




We chose Warner Brothers for our film as they have made many film noirs in the past so it would be perfect to promote ours. They have a wide range of experience and knowledge about the films that are set in the dark with dry ice to create the effect of smoke so they would know how to attract the right audiences also. Warner Brothers is also now a media conglomerate with Time Inc meaning that it is two companies joined to make Time Warner. This joins the Times newspaper and the studios together therefore leading to more publicity and being able to gain a larger audience if they have already watched movies that have been produced by Warner Bros then they have an increased chance of wanting to watch it. For example, The Hobbit was produced by Warner Bros and other films such as Harry Potter so when someone sees that warner Bros has produced or co-produced the film then they might want to watch the film more because it is also a worldwide well-known branded company.


Warner Brothers would help distribute our product in a range of ways for example, billboards, posters in shops and cinemas, celebrity chat shows and live twitter questions and answers. By doing this, it will get the message out and promote the film to all audiences depending whether they are the majority of the younger generation that is on social media sites or whether they are the older generations that still like to look and have things on paper. More over, this will promote to the whole world and not just one country which will have a dramatic increase on the amount of profit being made and the money that they get back from ticket sales and even merchandise. Different forms of merchandise would also be manufactured such as children's toys, games, apps, clothing and books so that it can have the chance to gain a variety of audiences and not just the typical primary audience of younger groups of people.

Evaluation - Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our film, all of the actors were teenagers no older than 17 but they were just acting as if they were older than they actually are. This challenges the conventions of film noir because all of the males in common film noirs are middle aged and older i.e. 35+, whereas the women tend to be younger i.e: 20-40 years old. The detective was wearing a business uniform of a shirt, trousers, shoes, tie, coat and trilby hat to make him look as if he was older than he actually his to convey him as a mature character compared to everyone else in the film. The other characters in the film were wearing normal business clothes too however you could distinguish the difference between them through the dialogue and the fact that they are not wearing a trilby hat or coat.


The femme fatal and the man in a film noire is usually like the scenario with a spider with a fly. She manipulates him into thinking that she is the victim when in fact, she is the one who has created a victim. She will use her good feminine looks to wrap him around her little finger so that he will do anything and everything for her and then this usually leads to someone else getting the blame however, sometimes she will get found out and only then this doesn't work out to her advantage.


Features of a femme fatal:

• The iconography is explicitly sexual with long sleek hair (blonde or dark), make up and jewellery.
• Cigarettes have sexual connotations of liberation and phallic power.
• 'Dress - or the lack of it - defines the woman'
• 'Iconography of violence is a specific symbol of her unnatural phallic power'
• Framed portrait of women is a common motif.
• Murders indicate narcissism or duplicity.
• Women are generally centre frame or drawing our attention by focusing on the foreground.
• Visual style expresses mood through darkness, both real in under-.jmlit and night-time scenes, and psychologically through shadow and claustrophobic settings which overwhelm the character. 

We also challenged the conventions even further by having the femme fatal as a quite and more innocent character and the males where is control compared to a more classic film noire where the female has all of the control and seduces the man into getting what she wants in the end. Our film was in colour which is unfamiliar to a common film noire where it is set in a black and white scene. Furthermore it adds modernisation into the film and will intrigue the audience into wanting to watch more to see if there are any more twists to surprise them with. The younger generation will be able to relate to the different situations in the film due to it being set in a more modern tone and with the characters portraying their typical younger generation characteristics.


In a film noire the detective is always portrayed as being slightly naïve and falls for the femme fatal with her devious actions. He is usually dressed in a trilby hat, trench coat and a suit with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. However, in our film we reversed the role and made our detective the complete opposite to the common stereotype. In ours he takes all of the control from the more innocent and quiet femme fatal and this makes him the dominant character. He overpowers the femme fatal and the other characters so this show the audience the more modern version of a detective and how it would be nowadays in a real life scenario.
 
By having different changes in our film compared to the typical film noire, we will attract a wider range of audiences of various ages which is what most films nowadays need in order to gain more profit from sales and cinema viewings.

Evaluation - Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In my media product we have followed the conventions of film noir by having a detective and a femme fatal. Our detective had everything that a detective in a film noir would have: a trilby hat, suit and tie etc... However the female in our film was a more modern twist on a femme fatal but wasn't actually shown on screen to create mystery and put a twist on the original film noir's. They would have usually been on the screen the majority of the time trying to persuade the detective of their innocence which he would then fall for and sometimes fall in love with her but in our film this is not the case. Most film noir's are in black and white whereas ours is in colour adding the modern twist to it to make it our own and unique. Due to the fact that the femme fatal wasn't actually filmed we thought this would add a sense of power and control to the detective challenging the conventions of a film noir as under normal circumstances, the femme fatal would have been the one to take charge throughout the whole of the film until she gets found out, that's if she does. We showed the contrast of the males having more control throughout the opening scene as there were no other females in any of the shots.

Here is a screenshot of our title clip on our opening sequence. As you can see it is significantly different compared to the image below of  a film noir mainly because ours is in colour and that one is in black and white. We have kept it in colour to challenge the common essentials of a film noir to make it individual to us and different from everyone else's.

In the original film noir's picture, they

have added the effect of having the smoke appear to add mystery to the film. What does the smoke mean? It makes the film look quite creepy and also foreshadows that something bad is going to happen which is then linking to the detective and the seductive femme fatal. 

The film noir looks as if it is set in a city because of the screenshot being taken down a side street. This conveys the isolation of the film and can hint to the audience that someone will be on there own in the very end. We also tried to challenge this convention by setting ours in first the detective's home and then the college to give it a different change of scenery. The title screenshot of our opening sequence is unique because it is outside the detective's house which you don't normally see in the old film noir's. 


The image on the left shows the close up camera shot of the detective and the femme fatal however in ours all of the close ups are of just the detective which changes some of the conventions even further. This image is also in black and white and ours is in colour. By doing this it gives our opening sequence a modern twist on the original film noir's. 

Silhouettes are frequently used in old film noir's and that's what makes ours significantly special because we don't have any shadows or silhouettes in ours adding to the modern aspect of it. 

How a femme fatal should be:

• The iconography is explicitly sexual with long sleek hair (blonde or dark), make up and jewelry.

• Cigarettes have sexual connotations of liberation and phallic power.

• 'Dress - or the lack of it - defines the woman'

• 'Iconography of violence is a specific symbol of her unnatural phallic power'

• Framed portrait of women is a common motif.

• Murders indicate narcissism or duplicity.

• Women are generally center frame or drawing our attention by focusing on the foreground.

• Visual style expresses mood through darkness, both real in under a dim light and night-time scenes, and psychologically through shadow and claustrophobic settings which overwhelm the character. 

Below is an image of Eva Green from the film 'Sin City 2' where she plays a stereotypical femme fatal...

Our femme fatal was completely different from the expected and contradicted the stereotypical femme fatal.